


i have loved someone truly

by emmyeccentric



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, dark oq, season 6 finale, that damn crib
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 11:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmyeccentric/pseuds/emmyeccentric
Summary: It's Zelena who notices first.





	i have loved someone truly

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Laura Izibor's "If Tonight Is My Last"; fits perfectly....listen to the Live From the Artist's Den version. It'll change ya life.

It's Zelena who notices first.

"Sis, didn't you notice something a little different about your twin just then? Or rather, a _big_ different?," she half-whispers, while the doppelgänger has left the room to peruse her extra potion storage.

Regina huffs. "What are you talking about?"

"I've been to the Enchanted Forest a number of times, and I can very much assure you, the food is _not_ that good," Zelena chuckles, "You've never looked so well-endowed in your life. At least Cora gave me that."

"Really? We are facing God-knows-what, and you're gonna bully the woman who's helping us? Who, may I add, _is me_?," she bites out in warning.

"Not bullying, sensitive. Just an observation. Look." Zelena shrugs over to a bassinet placed in the corner, shiny and new. Regina pauses dismissively but her heart tightens, only for a beat.

"There's no way. I ensured of that years ago. No." As they hear footsteps, the chattering stops and Regina views her counterpart with renewed scrutiny that has nothing to do with her blood soaked past.

* * *

 

Settling in to the Enchanted Forest is easy, the second time around. Easier still, because she's not alone. The bean is good; simple and effective, even if she and Robin have to fight off hordes to use it. And they're both strong, so they fight, and get the hell out of there.  
The Queen is the one to suggest they give to the poor. They went on one job in the Wish Land, and she loves the excitement of it, loves being with him, feeling the warmth of him in the cloak of darkness, depending on each other when the risk evolves into flat out danger. She knows she's in love, and she has love, a residual aura emanating from her blended heart. She has love, for Robin, and for others, so incognito she goes and gives her prizes to her subjects (there are people to rule here who remember Regina's humility and kind hand during the year she recently spent here) who are starving or sick. Robin sometimes surprises her with baubles he says are made especially for her; bring out her eyes, her décolletage, her smile.

Robin surprises her in many ways. He seems calloused by the life he led back in the other place, but when they are alone those callouses soften just a bit. He holds her hand while walking around the palace gardens, only to tease her about "her damn cold hands". Sometimes he gets angry, though, as she does. When he met his counterpart's son in this land, a cloud of quiet rage settles over him the next few days; envious of the life he never had, and bitterness for the life that was lost. Their tempers are a match for each other, but it's okay, it works...they usually end up in bed, after all is said and done.

True love can heal in more ways than the Queen ever imagined, and she regrets rejecting and questioning its power for so long. When a tincture of flowers, herbs, and light magic from a time-proven recipe is mixed with a drop of her blood, it emits a confirming burst of lavender fog. That's especially surprising. 

Robin finds her on the washroom floor one night in her nightgown hunched over a basin, gone positively green. "Well. I have to say that your regality has been somewhat compromised, my love," he quips, giving her water and peppermint leaves and gently brushing the long hair from where it sticks to her forehead. 

"Shut up, thief, you should talk; the one who sleeps on hay bales and bathes in rivers," she scoffs, but she doesn't mean it, neither of them ever mean it these days. "Besides," she pauses, voice ebbing with her exhaustion and queasiness, "it's your fault." She jerks his hand forward and places it low on her belly, and quickly marks the face he makes as her new favorite memory.

He is elated, and it doesn't fade for weeks, because she's given him the possibilities he sees when he looks at Roland; she's given him something he can't wait to live for.

"You were there too, weren't you?", she smirks, and he kisses it right off her face.

* * *

It must take more than three skilled witches to screw in this proverbial light bulb, _another_ fucking curse, Regina thinks as she mulls over the cauldron, grinding her teeth. Lost in her frustration she knocks over a vial of toadstool, its muddy fumes rising from the floor. 

The Queen, eyes wide, pulls a handkerchief from her bodice and quickly covers her nose and mouth.

Regina remembers, it's dangerous for pregnant women. Most dark potion ingredients are.

She looks on in awe, "You are...?" From behind her cloth barrier, the Queen gives a very regal eye roll, and nods, while Zelena zaps up the mess.

"Told ya, Sis," Zelena's eyes dart to the other one, "You're starting to show, Queenie." The Queen places a cautious hand to her abdomen, removing the cloth from her face.

"I was hoping to have a few more weeks...," she sighs looking down at herself, "but yes." She looks much lighter.

"Robin...does he..?" Regina asks, voice meek and watery.

"He's ecstatic," her eyes brighten and sparkle, "Swears it's a son, of course. But it's a girl, I feel her, the tiny bits of magic she has. I have quickening now and again."

It takes everything in Regina not to cry, from envy, from anger, from joy, but she swallows the lump in her throat, and stands up straighter. "All the more motivation to save this realm. And you," she directs pointedly to her other half, "need to leave. This is dangerous."

The Queen scoffs. "I can use magic."

"It's not worth the risk with this stuff. Go. Rest. We'll come get you if it is absolutely necessary." Regina returns her attentions to the cauldron.

Zelena sorts through the other vials that the Queen brought. "Believe me dear, I can tell you from experience, magic and pregnancy don't mix. Do as she says."

With a tsk, the Queen relents. "Fine. But remember you asked _me_ for help."

"And you've helped us immensely," Regina says, "rest now."

* * *

"I _love_ this," the Queen purrs as she looks in the mirror, running her fingers over her chest, "but this? Not so much," when her hands reach where the fabric of her nightgown molds around the curve of her stomach. "Nor this," she says, pinching fuller cheeks.

"I'd thank you kindly not to talk about my child or its mother that way," Robin says from behind her, placing a kiss to her cheek, gazing at their shared reflection.

"I don't like being fat," she pouts, "I can hear Mother now: _'Regina, just because you've found yourself like this doesn't mean you can let yourself go', 'You're getting stout', 'Good gods, Regina, are you carrying twins?_ '" 

Robin turns her around and looks at her sternly, with soft eyes. "And she is not here, nor will she ever be," he brushes his lips against hers, "You're not stout, you're having a baby. My baby. So do shut up." The Queen shoves him off, until he grabs her and kisses her to breathlessness.

He pulls away, and twirls her thicker hair around his finger. "Love, I know this is poor timing, but Friar Tuck and I and some of the men have to get supplies for a special project. I'll stay for a few more hours, but I'll be back a little after nightfall tomorrow." 

"So I start to plump up and then you leave?"

"Exactly," he grins, "I can't wait to see you towards the end."

She whines, "You'll probably confuse me with Little John."

"Maybe. But to be completely honest, I've been known to fancy women of a thicker set..." he muses, narrowing the shared space between them.

She nips at his lip. "Really?", she challenges, drawing out a sigh as she palms the front of his trousers, "prove it, thief."

* * *

"I'm going to hold it off as long as I can."

"You'll die!" Her lighter counterpart screams.

The Queen has thought briefly, but intensely, and she refuses to leave the oldest of her children without a mother, because the other isn't born yet, and its father is already gone.

"It'll give you time to get the courtyard. Go to the center of the castle. You can survive long enough there to get the bean to work. You need time; let me give it to you."

"Regina..."

"Go! He's my son, too. He needs at least one of us." And so the other version of her runs, and with all her might the Queen conjures something indescribable, not a just a product of her magic, but the magic of the child growing within her. Still, the clouds can't be held back, and everything goes dark.

* * *

Hope, or its foundation, belief, is quite an interesting thing, The Queen muses as she looks over her newly restored kingdom after the strangest sort of limbo. They are both overwhelmingly powerful, almost as powerful as love. The three qualities complement each other that way.

The baby inside her bounces and flutters with a vigor she hasn't felt before, flutters no longer but proper kicks. 

Robin's out in the forest she overlooks, making his way home to her with the story of how they almost never were. She doesn't know these things for certain (he forgot to pack a damn mirror; what a time to have done so) but again, belief is overwhelmingly powerful. 

He doesn't show up until later that night. Instead an arrow nearly takes off her head as she combs her hair, so healthy now, she swears it grows an inch a day. The ring is beautiful, lined with rubies and onyx, representing the dark hearts they've both overcome. She turns, finger catching the light, one eyebrow raised, parchment in hand.

"Another one?", she teases, fingers playing with the roughness of his beard.

The smirk playing his lips still renders her useless, and he pulls her closer. "Not too tired, eh?"

"We're just getting started," Regina asserts, breathing in the smell of wood and pine.

**Author's Note:**

> i really wanna write more oq ff because I really love the community. i'm gonna try to come throughhhh :)


End file.
